Cellist Bernard Greenhouse, 95, eloquent anchor of Beaux Arts Trio
Bernard Greenhouse, a distinguished cellist and founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, died Friday morning at his home in Wellfleet. The cause was heart failure, according to Dr. Tom Delbanco, a family member. He was 95.
Mr. Greenhouse, pianist Menahem Pressler, and violinist Daniel Guilet founded the Beaux Arts Trio in 1955 and made an acclaimed debut at the Berkshire Music Center. He played in the group for the next 32 years as it established its celebrated reputation through active touring and recording, including all of the standard piano trio repertoire, some of it multiple times. Mr. Greenhouse anchored the ensemble with playing known for its eloquence and musical intelligence.
“He was a wonderful, uniquely great artist,’’ Pressler said yesterday in a phone interview. “I am of course not exactly neutral, but he had the most beautiful vibrato I’ve ever encountered by any cellist, because it was led by a unique sensitivity.’’ He added that in performances of a signature encore from Dvorak’s “Dumky’’ Trio, “I had to be observant like a hawk because he was always so creative in the moment, and so different each time. And that of course is the mark of a true artist.’’
Mr. Greenhouse was born in Newark and started cello at age 8, later attending the Juilliard School and studying with Felix Salmond, Emanuel Feuermann, and Diran Alexanian. As a student he deeply admired Pablo Casals, and recalled in later years that he liked to practice as a boy in New Jersey with his window open, just in case Casals happened to be walking by.
By 1946, after years of study and holding a principal position with the
His one-year period of intensive study there was an experience that deeply influenced his approach to the cello and his broader musical outlook. In later years, he was fond of passing on details of Casals’s technical insights — down to the level of fingerings for particular passages — while also stressing that artistic maturity necessarily meant thinking for oneself.
“Being an artist means you have absorbed enough education so you are at liberty to put a personal stamp on your music that doesn’t resemble your teachers,’ ’’ he said in a video interview with family members.
After studies with Casals, Mr. Greenhouse played in the Harpsichord Quartet and earned a spot performing with the Bach Aria Group. He was also interested in new music and premiered Elliott Carter’s landmark Cello Sonata in 1949. But the main commitment of his professional life was the Beaux Arts Trio.
The ensemble during Mr. Greenhouse’s tenure enjoyed a rare stability of personnel, with only one change (violinist Isidore Cohen replaced Guilet in 1969). In a midcentury era in which the chamber music scene was dominated by string quartets, the Beaux Arts drew attention to the riches of piano trio literature. And the group in its best years also seemed capable of maintaining an extremely active touring schedule without allowing the burdens of such a life to seep into its music-making. Reviewing in the Globe a 1986 performance at Harvard University, critic Richard Buell observed: “The Beaux Arts plays as if every note, every phrase, every balance were cherishable, rare, and new.’’
Mr. Greenhouse taught cello at Juilliard, Rutgers University, and the New England Conservatory, among many other schools. After retiring from the Beaux Arts in 1987, he also taught privately, receiving visiting ensembles and solo cellists for intensive periods of coaching and lessons at his Wellfleet home. Lessons at times would range beyond music, into cooking, another passion of Mr. Greenhouse’s. Dr. Delbanco, who is an amateur violinist, recalled how the cellist stressed not only the fundamentals of tone production but also the virtues of a good bouillabaisse. “You have to make good food in order to make good music,’’ he recalled Mr. Greenhouse saying.
Not long into his time with the Beaux Arts Trio, Mr. Greenhouse acquired a prized Stradivarius cello from 1707— “the Countess of Stanlein’’ — once owned by Paganini. In later years, he would often astonish students by inviting them to play it. The cellist Anne Francis of the Fry Street Quartet recalled Mr. Greenhouse approaching her while she was warming up for a coaching session in Wellfleet in 2007. “Anna, I think it’s time,’’ she recalled him saying with a sense of ceremony. “Come, let’s go get the Strad.’’
Other students and those he mentored earlier in his career remained grateful. Cellist Paul Katz, formerly of the Cleveland Quartet, wrote on his blog: “The warmth and humanity expressed in Bernie’s sound and his words of cello advice always stayed with me.’’ Cellist Laurence Lesser, president emeritus of New England Conservatory, called him “a musician of elegance and honesty.’’
Mr. Greenhouse married Aurora de la Luz Fernandez y Menendez, who died in 2006. He leaves his daughters Elena Delbanco of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Nancy Carter-Menendez of Connecticut. In 1985, his son-in-law Nicholas Delbanco published a book about the ensemble titled “The Beaux Arts Trio.’’ A tribute concert will take place on June 4 at the Wellfleet Congregational Church.
Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com. 
